Fiber optic connectors are required in large quantities in the telecommunications and cable television markets for the manufacture and use of fiber optic assemblies and components. In order to enable the connectors to provide the most optimum transmission path for the fiber optic cables, the ends of the connectors require special polishing. Current machines for polishing fiber optic connectors polish only in a circular pattern which does not produce the most effective polish. Moreover, the current polishers can polish no more than eighteen connectors at one time.
The art of polishing fiber optic connectors has been derived from the art of polishing gem stones. Basically, a gem stone polishing machine includes a rotating platter against which the gemstone is moved to effect polishing. This gemstone polishing technique was initially adopted for polishing fiber optic connectors and then subsequently modified.
The polishing surface in such gemstone polishing machines thus travels in a circular pattern, and the gemstone polishers modified to polish fiber optic connectors have likewise employed a circular pattern.
It is known, however, that a more effective polish can be obtained if the polishing surface travels in a figure eight pattern, rather than a circular pattern, as the polishing surface moves over the connector. The figure eight pattern, if it can be obtained and maintained during the polishing operation, provides the optimum method of polishing the end faces of fiber optic connectors. A constant figure eight pattern produces the best radii and apex shift obtainable on the spherical ends of the connectors and on similarly configured industrial components.
Not only is a circular pattern less effective in creating the desired polish on the connectors, it limits the number of connectors that can be polished at the same time. As shown in the Kawada U.S. Pat. No. 5,516,328, such a polisher rotates and revolves and thereby traces circular polishing paths that are revolved about a center. As a result the connectors must be located at the periphery in a circular formation with no connectors in the center, whereby fewer connectors can be polished than if the formation included connectors in the center.